Document 997v83yv4GO5pnxne39jL4B27

Plant Engineers' Conference' Page 45 close to $300,000.00 in these units. Could some outside party be interested in rebuilding these for us when a complete overhaul is needed? We have a very fine crew at Great Lakes, and I have seen trucks rebuilt that certainly worked as good as brand new ones. These units now cost about $7,000.00 each, and every effort should be made to get the maximum life out of every one of them. Flasks: Being an expert foundry man I can now talk freely about flasks. These also have gone up sky high in price. In my visits to various plants I notice flasks that have not been used for years. Generally asking the superintendent why they are not scrapped, I always get the same answer: "We might get another order for those castings.'1 Is it not possible to check with another division and see if they have flasks of the same size that could be loaned in case the order finally did arrive? Couldn't we scrap a large tonnage of old flasks when scrap of all kinds is so badly needed? I really think it would be impossible for me to talk without bringing in good housekeeping. I shudder to think of bow many times I have seen the Maintenance Department make either a minor or major repair and then walk off to another job, leaving all the scrap, and wire, and everything else right at the spot. It is the responsibility of the plant engineer to see to it that all waste material is removed at once and scrapped. I don't know how much old junk I have seen in all our plants that is put aside with the thought that sometime in the next ten or twenty years we might have use for it. Let's think of scrap at two cents a pound and turn it into real dollars for the Brake Shoe Company. The only think I can think of to bring this home forcibly is to have all of you walk into Kempton Dunn's office and see one, two, five, and ten dollar bills strewn all over the floor. You probably would think he was a hell of a treasurer. Still and all, we have this very same condition in every one of our plants today. I hope none of you ever have the "pleasant" experience we had in Chicago Heights of excavating our core room to a depth of two feet to put in a concrete floor, and after leveling off at that distance, of finding a nice concrete floor already there. Thanks a lot! SPNY 000291